Kaleb Driggers and Junior Nogueira laid down the gauntlet in Round 3 of the 2024 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo with a 3.7-second run, and two teams later the Dustin Egusquiza and Levi Lord responded with a matching 3.7 to split the go-round and win $30,155.46 a man.
This was the first check of the week for both Driggers and Nogueira and Egusquiza and Lord. The 2021 and 2022 World Champs Driggers and Nogueira had a leg on the first steer and a no-time in Round 2, while season leaders Egusquiza and Lord had two no-times so far in the rodeo.
Driggers and Nogueira are now No. 3 in the PRCA world standings with $217,516.01 and $228,641.76 a man on the year, while Egusquiza and Lord are second with matching $241,163.16 totals on the season. The No. 1 team in the world remains Tyler Wade and Wesley Thorp, who took a no-time with a miss on a low-headed steer in Round 3—when they went directly in between Driggers and Nogueira and Egusquiza and Lord. Wade and Thorp have $269,111.92 on the year.
“It just fires me up to watch Kaleb and Junior and TWade and Thorp go faster right before me, ever night,” Lord, 28, said of the order in which the top three teams rope nightly. “Those guys have made two amazing runs, and its team roping—a lot of stuff can happen this week.”
Coming off a blown spoke in Round 2, Driggers was out for blood in Round 3. He made a horse change—swapping to his backup, Fin Bar Whiskey One, a 2010 bay gelding he’d sold to Marcus Theriot then bought back this summer.
“He wants to have a little tendency of wanting to go out the front a little bit, and I thought that they was going to make the steers hit fast,” Driggers, 34, said. “But honestly after watching ’em, the steers were kind of hanging on the end of it a little bit and I think he would’ve been fine. I was probably going to ride him at some point anyway when the rounds started getting faster, but they already started fast this year. I didn’t know if I could catch all 10 on him. I’ve got him pretty tight so he’s wanting to come back up, but after last night’s slip I figured it’s only eight left.”
Nogueira made a horse change too, going back to his 2021 World Championship mount, Kiehnes Frosty Pepto. The buckskin gelding knows the play in the Thomas & Mack, but Nogueira is so comfortable on Timon, that didn’t matter.
“I know Timon very well,” Nogueira, 34, said. “Even when he doesn’t work, it’s perfect. But we all know after the horse has been here so many times they kind of getting a little smarter, but that’s why I just decided to ride him get going a little faster.”
Egusquiza also made a horse change. And that horse? Well, he’s kind of a big deal in this building.
“Aaron Tsinigine said that I could come run some steers on his,” Egusquiza, 29, said. “And I literally ran five or six steers on that horse yesterday morning, and he felt easy and he’s been amazing in here. I mean he stands in the box good and leaves really flat and is good on the end of the ropes. That feels pretty easy, and it’s never felt easy in here.”
That horse of Tsinigine’s is Little Brother, the grade 17-year-old gelding that Tsingine won the average at the Finals aboard with Trey Yates in 2018. It just so happened Derrick Begay had Little Brother here for a backup horse.
Lord got the round win on Birdie, his gelding Zoomin Diamond Prom.
“I spent a lot of time getting him ready just because your heel horse has to run so fast here,” Lord said. “He just doesn’t mess up very often. He gets you in a good spot, and if he does have a hole, it’s just he can’t run super fast, but he gets to a good spot so he feels good. And hopefully we can put it together some more.”
